This page includes information about the aims and scope of Globalization and Health, editorial policies, open access and article-processing charges, the peer review process and other information. For details of how to prepare and submit a manuscript through the online submission system, please see the instructions for authors.

Aims & scope

Globalization and Health is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that provides an international forum for high quality original research, knowledge sharing and debate on the topic of globalization and its effects on health, both positive and negative.

Globalization, namely the intensification of flows of people, goods, and services across borders, has a complex influence on health. The journal publishes material relevant to any aspect of globalization and health from a wide range of social science and health-related disciplines (e.g. economics, sociology, epidemiology, demography, psychology, politics and international relations). The output of the journal is useful to a wide audience interested in global health, including academics, policy-makers, health care practitioners, and public health professionals.

The journal focuses on advancing the conceptual and theoretical tenets, empirical evidence base, and policy applications relevant to globalization and health. Related issues include the SARS virus and its control, the politics of the tobacco industry, the 'Westernization' of lifestyle behaviours and associated health implications, and access to essential medicines. The relationship between globalization and health assumes a broad lens and multidisciplinary approach, attending to the multitude of factors that directly and indirectly impact upon health.

Globalization and Health is dedicated to supporting the breadth of topics and issues underpinning this emerging and divergent area of research, and welcomes a range of publications, including original research, commentaries, evidence reviews, debate articles and book reviews. As a global health journal it also actively encourages publications from developing countries and economies in transition.

Open access

All articles published by Globalization and Health are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.

Authors of articles published in Globalization and Health are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate the article, according to the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement.

For authors who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BioMed Central can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Globalization and Health therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1370/$2145/€1745 for each article accepted for publication. If the submitting author's institution is a Member, the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable. In the case of authors whose institutions are Supporter Members, however, a discounted article-processing charge is payable by the author.
We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. For other countries, article-processing charge waivers or discounts are granted on a case-by-case basis to authors with insufficient funds. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process. For further details, see our article-processing charge page.

Indexing services

All articles published in Globalization and Health are included in PubMed, the most widely used biomedical bibliographic database service, which is run by the US National Library of Medicine. Other bibliographic databases that index articles published in Globalization and Health include:

CABI

Citebase

DOAJ

Embase

Global Health

Google Scholar

IBSS

Index Copernicus

MEDLINE

OAIster

PAIS International

PubMed

PubMed Central

Science Citation Index Expanded

SCImago

Scopus

SOCOLAR

Zetoc

The full text of all research articles is deposited in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and other digital archives including e-Depot (The Netherlands).

The full text of all research articles published by BioMed Central is also available on SpringerLink.

Publication and peer review process

Criteria for publication

Reviews - comprehensive, authoritative descriptions of any subject with the scope of the journal. These articles are usually written by opinion leaders, invited by the Editorial Board.

Commentaries - short, focussed and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board.

Debate articles - present an argument that is not essentially based on practical research. Debate articles can report on all aspects of the subject including sociological and ethical aspects.

Short reports - brief reports of data from original research.

Book reviews - short summaries of the strengths and weaknesses of a book. They should evaluate its overall usefulness to the intended audience.

Peer-review policies

Each manuscript submitted to Globalization and Health will be screened by a member of the Editorial Board. If the quality and scope are considered to be appropriate for the journal, the manuscript will be sent for external peer-review. The Editor will make the final decision about publication, based on the external reviewers' comments.

Edited by Greg Martin, Globalization and Health is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscript through the submission system at any time by logging into My Globalization and Health, a personalized section of the site.

Reprints

High-quality, bound reprints can be purchased for all articles published. Please see our reprints website for further information about ordering reprints.

Supplements

Globalization and Health will consider supplements based on proceedings (full articles or meeting abstracts), reviews or research. All articles submitted for publication in supplements are subject to peer review. Published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online and can also be produced in print. All full length articles (proceedings, reviews or research articles) are indexed by PubMed. PubMed displays the title of the supplement only in the case of meeting abstract collections. For further information, please contact us.

Editorial policies

Citing articles in Globalization and Health

Articles in Globalization and Health should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.

Why publish your article in Globalization and Health?

High visibility

Globalization and Health's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. Articles that have been especially highly accessed are highlighted with a 'Highly accessed' graphic, which appears on the journal's contents pages and search results.

Speed of publication

Globalization and Health offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files).
Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Globalization and Health, BioMed Central and PubMed Central and will also be included in PubMed.

Flexibility

Online publication in Globalization and Health gives authors the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Globalization and Health are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be included in abstract books mailed to academics and are highlighted on Globalization and Health's pages and on the BioMed Central homepage.

In addition, articles published in Globalization and Health may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Globalization and Health. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BioMed Central is available here.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Globalization and Health retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the BioMed Central copyright policy and license agreement).

For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BioMed Central, please click here.